The District of Houston council has come up with a list of provincial cabinet ministers it wants to arm-twist at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention this September in Whistler.
Topping the list are meetings with Premier David Eby, municipal affairs minister Anne Kang, forests minister Katrine Conroy and jobs minister Brenda Bailey over Canfor’s decision of earlier this year to close its sawmill here.
Whether or not Canfor will build a new mill will be known by then but the overall impact on the community remains an important point for council to emphasize, mayor Shane Brienen said at council’s June 6 meeting.
“We’ve gone through a transition with both governments and we don’t feel it’s changed at all,” Brienen said in recalling West Fraser’s 2014 closing of its sawmill here when the B.C. Liberals (now renamed as B.C. United) were in government and now Canfor’s closure with the NDP in power.
“We have at every opportunity said at every level that it feels like there’s just band-aids. Anytime that they’d like to sit down and talk about transition in small communities … we’d love to help us be a community that’s been through it two times in about eight and a half years,” he said.
“It was even interesting this time because when we went in we said we have just done this. These are the things we don’t need. These are the things we do need, but we still had a fairly drawn out process in the beginning again, going those things,” Brienen added.
Also on the list is pressing the Conroy as forests minister and Nathan Cullen as water, lands and resource stewardship minister Nathan Cullen on more local government involvement as more First Nations assume control of forestry.
Conroy is also the focus of the District’s lengthy campaign to expand the amount of wood the Dungate Community Forest can cut. So far the province has rebuffed the District.
Council members also want to lobby Eby and Kang for a share of regional resource taxation that now flows to the provincial government. This follows the multi-year effort of the Northwest BC Resource Benefits Alliance, a coalition of northwestern local governments. Brienen is one of the co-chairs of the alliance and has been making regular trips to Victoria to press the case.
Other topics council wants to pursue are increased services for children and families and increased local mental health and addictions services.
Council will continue its long-standing lobbying campaign for a return of Coast Mountain College to the community and more skills training through a meeting with post-secondary education and future skills minister Selina Robinson.
Although local governments from around B.C. gather to discuss common issues each September, provincial cabinet ministers attend as well.